My youngest was easy. The first costume with a set of wings that she set eyes on was the perfect costume for her. My oldest is proving to be a little more challenging to please. She spotted a candy corn fairy costume in a catalog and is fixated on having that exact outfit.

Of course that costume is so far beyond my budget that it would take candy corn fairy dust for her to have it.

In an attempt to sway her with other options I carted her from store to store yesterday, looking for a decent alternative that suited her sense of style and wouldn’t cause such a dent in my wallet. Four stores later we were still at a stalemate. Only the catalog version would do. The very expensive catalog version.

With Halloween just a few weeks away we’re going to have to come to some agreement. More realistically, I’m going to have to appeal to her creative side. As easy as it would be to just hand over my credit card, I know that if I do the costume will be laying on the bottom of the closet the instant we get home from Trick-or-Treating. If I get her to help me creatively recreate the costume of her dreams, she’ll be playing with it for weeks. Even better she’ll remember it forever, and isn’t building memories what Halloween is all about?